Its official Senator McCain is running for POW-in-Chief

[grantcart]

Senator McCain used to be a person with a certain amount of dignity and who wasn't particularly concerned about partisan orthodoxy.

He used to be a person who had a sense of proportion and personal modesty.

The high point was when he came to the aid of the Clinton administration in their effort to normalize relations with the People's Republic of Vietnam. He was able to put the events of the '70s into context. He was able to truthfully report that the PRV had gone the extra 10 miles to completely open the country and its records to exhaustively find the remains of ever possible downed flier or missing American. It really was his finest hour.


Now in consecutive days he has taken to retelling the story of how he followed the code and refused to cut the line and leave ahead of his comrades. Such a code is adopted to take away the power of the captives to manipulate the prisoners by creating divisions between them.


He isn't simply making a veiled reference to it, he is using it as the hallmark of his life and one of the crudest forms of self promotion ever to be seen on a Presidential campaign.


Here is the odd thing. Here is what makes this so dangerous and revolting.


No one can reduplicate that event. Its a trump card that cannot be debated or discussed. It is as relevant as Senator Obama's jump shot. No other candidate can come back to that point and said that in similar circumstances they did such and such.

But the thing that should be most disturbing about all of this is that he doesn't recall his real days of courage - when he was able to move beyond his personal experience, take a broader world view and put the interests of the country ahead of partisan political interests and help to former combatants reconcile. It also advanced the interests of peace in South East Asia. It is the kind of leadership that the United States needs.

But that John McCain is long gone. The people that run his campaign don't want to run McCain as a person who would pursue peace and reconciliaton

That McCain has been abandoned and if this John McCain is elected then the United States should not expect a President who will move beyond personal experience to advance the interests of the United States but a President who still carries the resentment and the emotion of his imprisonment. It is a spectacular continuation of the most elemental flaw of the Bush Administration - use the full force of the United States to carry out the personal retribution of a emotionally stunted President who perceives himself and his family as having been personally wronged.


Senator McCain is running as POW-in-Chief of the Third Bush Administration.

[cliffordu]

1. You're doing an awful lot of good work lately, grantcart. Kids gone to summer camp?

Another k&r from me.

Good work.

[grantcart]

5. had a day off - will be gone for a few days

[KittyWampus]

2. Then why did he cave to the Bush Administration and sign-on to allowing torture?

[grantcart]

3. because once he started running for President his ambition turned him

backwards and he has become of a caricature of his former self.

If you read the OP you will see that I am agreeing with your premise.


He was a person who stood against torture for principle. He is now without principle and consumed by his Presidential ambitions.

[VolcanoJen]

4. Big Kick & Rec from me!

Another great grantcart post.

[grantcart]

11. thanks Jen

[opihimoimoi]

6. Off to the greatest page with you...K&R

[grantcart]

22. thanks opi

[Pirate Smile]

7. I saw how he ended his speech today at his town hall using this.

It was kind of bizarre. I guess every campaign event will now be a tribute to his time as a POW.

[grantcart]

17. Well it more or less forces the people in the auditorium to give him a standing ovation

and I think that they think that really means something rather than people simply being polite.


It even may leave a positive feeling for a few minutes for the people that were there but that will fade and if your watching on TV it looks terrible.

[blondie58]

8. great post. We really benefit from you having a day off!

but I have read numerous articles that say that McCain is rather prejudiced against people from Asia, has called them names, etc., so he obviously didn't bond with them as much as he claims.

[grantcart]

10. A few years ago he referred to the guards of the POWs as "gooks"

This was the term that was used by the prisoners for their guards, as well as other more colorful terms, as I am sure that we can all imagine.


After he made the remarks he explained and did not apologize saying to the effect that he was referring to the guards and not the Vietnamese people.

A Vietnamese-American group asked him to apologize and he did so and there were some well publicized meetings. He still retains a fairly high level of support among Vietnamese Americans, besides the Caldean Iraqis they may be his strongest ethnic support.


Besides the fact that his explanation makes sense (that he was choosing the word gooks because using something like M-F Bastards would not have been polite when talking about the guards at the camp) I think that there are two other factors that show this may be an unfair charge: 1) he adopted an Asian (Bengladeshi) child into his family - not a small personal act 2) When it came to paying back the Vietnamese he was on Clinton's side in terms of normalizing relations - and took a great deal of grief for it.


I know that some are of the opinion that we should take the most unfavorable interpretation of this and use it against him.


I disagree. I think by showing that we are fair minded when we now note that he has abandoned the higher plateau that he once held we have more credibility and have a greater chance of influencing people who don't share our world view.

[blondie58]

14. good enough explanation, grantcart

I just remember that the articles that I had read before as being less than flattering about his use of ahem "colorful" words about the Asian people. And I had read once before that Cindy had come back from some sort of a volunteer trip with Bridget (I think that is her name), unbeknownst to John. That really makes me admire her. One more thing that bothers me is that during the 2004 election, McCain let the other Repubs smear him with that "black child from another mother" business. I don't rememember that he ever defended his wife and child, however, I was not so intereted in politics back then.

[grantcart]

16. he couldn't really defend himself that was what made the charges so

scandalous. What could he say, "she is dark but she isn't black"?


When you put that together with all of the problems that his wife hs - including her mental problems - you wonder why would he submit his family to more torture.

He has a naked ambition that is really curious - what is he trying to prove and why is he willing to go to bed with people that have damaged his family?


If I were he I would have left the party and become an independent.

[zulchzulu]

9. He is in fact Prisoner of Dubya....

...POW where W = Chimpy...

[grantcart]

18. sucking up to the guy that trashed your family

[me b zola]

12. This should be run as an Op-Ed

Preferably in the WaPo.

Outstanding post.

[grantcart]

15. thanks mademoiselle

[izzybeans]

13. It's most likely a myth that he was ever any of those things.

He sounds rather like he used to be a simpleton nitwit who has rode the coattails of large piggy banks while sucking on a silver spoon. And that is something that has not changed. Do we honestly think Republicans would nominate anyone other than a Manchurian candidate for the investor class? Since Ronnie forgot about his Raygun this has been the case.

[grantcart]

19. kick

[Eyes_wide_ open]

20. I've been very impressed

with the thoughtful treatment of facts in many of your recent posts Grantcart. Well said

"It is a spectacular continuation of the most elemental flaw of the Bush Administration - use the full force of the United States to carry out the personal retribution of a emotionally stunted President who perceives himself and his family as having been personally wronged."

I don't believe I've seen a more accurate description of our present administration or McCain's campaign anywhere, ever.

Bravo!

[grantcart]

21. thank you ewo

[grantcart]

23. evening kick

[grantcart]

24. ..

[Rocky2007]

25. Spot on!!

Obama is going to have many McSplot chances in the weeks to come

[grantcart]

26. thanks Rocky and welcome to DU

[grantcart]

27. ...

[grantcart]

28. graveyard kick

[Barrymores Ghost]

29. F*ck...I didn't see this until today...

..but I will kick this to the moon and back. One hell of a post, grantcart. This will become my rebuttal du jour when entertaining conversations of McCain with my unschooled GOP-inclined friends...

Bravo.

BG

[Barrymores Ghost]

30. kicked out of principle. Read this effin' post, people!! n/t